


i was just an only child of the universe (and then i found you)

by hearden



Series: Lux Aeterna [2]
Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017), Power Rangers R.P.M.
Genre: Alternate Universe - RPM, Angst, F/F, Grid Theory, i mean like RPM is already an AU in itself but like semantics, other ranger cameos but i was too lazy to tag them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-21 07:48:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11939580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearden/pseuds/hearden
Summary: In the worst timeline, Trini meets the last Ranger on Earth.(aka the rpm verse au literally nobody asked for)





	1. you were too good to be true

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Draenator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draenator/gifts), [lyricsRpoems](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricsRpoems/gifts).



> idk wtf this is tbh
> 
> also i guess i'm just writing trini aus now... other main fics? never heard of her
> 
>  **warnings:** minor mentions of background character deaths because rpm verse means people are gonna be dead anyway

Trini wakes in the backseat of a car, the roaring engine jolting her out of her sleep.

The car takes a sharp turn, throwing her against the window. She yelps, catching the driver's attention, and scrambles to properly buckle herself in.

"Morning, sunshine!" a female voice calls to her over the noise, "Sorry about the seatbelt thing -- we're kinda in a rush, I'm sure you understand."

"We? What do you mean _we_?" She peers at the woman in the driver's seat -- long, sandy blonde hair, fair skin, hard eyes but a daring smile. An odd necklace stands out in contrast to the woman's pale yellow shirt, catching Trini's attention; it looks less like an actual necklace and more like some sort of flash drive holder, but not exactly.

 _Cell chip,_ her mind supplies, _It's a cell chip holder._

She has no idea what a cell chip is or what it does, but the thought brings forth recognition. "You're… you're Ranger Operator Series Yellow," she says, eyes widening, "What- what are you doing here? What am _I_ doing here?"

"You're here because I'm saving your life," Summer Landsdown says and flashes Trini a grin.

 

* * *

 

Summer pulls the car into a garage that Trini's never been in before and in the middle of other vehicles that Trini only vaguely recognizes as the other Ranger Operators' transports. However, they're all banged up, and she'd hazard a guess to say that they're all inoperable -- especially the red one that has the front twisted into an ugly, gruesome shape that Trini can't even tell what the make is.

Trini stumbles out when Summer opens the door for her, her eyes lingering on the red sedan, and Summer follows her gaze, quickly frowning.

"It's a Nissan," she says, short and simple.

"It was Scott's, wasn't it?" Trini asks, recalling his name easily -- he was the forgotten golden boy, the colonel's surviving son.

Summer stiffens.

Well, not exactly surviving anymore.

"Come on," Summer motions for her to follow along and starts walking toward a set of metal doors, not actually waiting for Trini, "I need to run you through some tests. Make sure you're okay."

The doors hiss open for Summer, and Trini trails behind her, stopping in her tracks when she steps into the next room.

It looks like a lab. In fact, it would've _been_ a fully intact lab, if not for the giant hole in one of the walls, half covered up by debris.

To her right, Trini sees five display cases, empty, with various colored lights casting soft glows on nothing inside.

She squints at the case basked in yellow light and the number 3 on the label. "What used to be in there?" she asks.

Summer frowns, not looking at her, "Take a guess."

 

* * *

 

"Why'd you take me here? Isn't this, like, a secret base?" Trini asks between stripping off her clothes and changing into a tank top and shorts to undergo whatever _tests_ Summer wants to put her through. (She'd already had her vitals scanned half an hour ago, so it's definitely not a regular doctor's visit.)

A moment passes as Summer ignores her and takes her clothes, folding them over a chair. "You know, Revocation started in this city," she says, instead, rubbing the material of Trini's shirt between her fingers, "Before it was called Corinth, I mean."

Trini glances at the design and mulls over the name of the band. It doesn't ring a bell.

She closes her eyes and thinks harder, a memory with her mom at the mall flashing behind her eyes.

A screech sounds in her ears, violently jarring, like a fire alarm or a dissonant chord, and she winces, pressing her palm to her temple.

Summer rushes forward, hands hovering but not touching her, concern furrowing her brow, "Are you okay?" Her voice sounds muffled, distant, in Trini's mind.

"I--" Trini shakes her head, and the sound stops, abruptly, "You- you didn't hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Hear…" she trails off, "Um, I don't- I don't know."

Summer stares at her and worriedly bites her lower lip, "I think I need to run you through some scans again."

 

* * *

 

There's nothing wrong with her.

Or, at least, there _seems_ to be nothing wrong with her, but with the way Summer is hunched over the tablet in her hands, shaking her head every few seconds and muttering things that Trini can't hear from her seat, there apparently _should_ be something wrong with her.

"Why'd you take me here?" she speaks up, startling Summer into almost dropping her tablet.

Summer sighs and re-focuses her attention on the screen in front of her. "You already asked that earlier," she mutters.

"Yeah, well, you didn't answer me earlier," Trini counters with a scowl, "Why aren't we at, I don't know, a hospital or something?"

Summer scoffs, "There's no hospital in the city that's safer than being here with me." She sets her tablet down on a nearby table and crosses her arms, "Even if there were any hospitals left."

Trini raises an eyebrow, taking note of the defensive body language, "There's nowhere safer than being here with you? You don't even have any medical experience."

"Oh? What makes you say that?"

Trini sits up straighter in her chair and raises her chin, "You walk around running tests and all that, but you do it like it's new to you. Maybe your first time."

At Summer rolling her eyes, Trini amends her hunch, thinking back to the inoperable cars in the garage, "Maybe your first time doing it alone."

She knows she's touched a nerve -- and, therefore, said something right -- when Summer presses her lips into a thin line and doesn't respond.

 

* * *

 

Since there's nothing wrong with her, she resumes Summer's tests shortly afterward, and the silence that hangs between them feels like having to walk into the kitchen after a stern lecture from her parents.

The memory that comes into Trini's mind, unbidden, from that thought triggers the screeching sound in her ears again, and this time, Trini recognizes it as what metal would sound like as it's crushed.

Nevertheless, she loses her focus and trips right off of the electronic treadmill.

Summer's at her side in a flash, propping her up as she clutches at her head where it'd smacked into the treadmill as she was falling.

"Here, I got you," Summer murmurs, gently combing her fingers through Trini's hair to examine her scalp. She pokes the exact spot where Trini had banged her head and frowns at the resulting groan of pain, "Sorry. It doesn't look too bad, though. I'll find you an ice pack. Or I _hope_ I can find you an ice pack somewhere around here."

"It's fine," Trini mutters, waving her hand, "I just need to take a breather."

Summer shifts into a sitting position on the floor next to her, legs crossed. "What happened?" she asks, softly, "I was watching you, and then it was like… you zoned out on me."

"I…" she blinks, "I, um, remembered something. A fight I had with my mom."

"Does she live in Corinth?"

Trini nods. "Yeah. I mean, we haven't talked in… awhile, but. She still lives here, yeah."

Summer reaches into her pocket and pulls out a key hanging off of a bear keychain, handing it to Trini, "Go see her. You have a license, right?"

"Well… yeah, but I don't think anyone's gonna care if I do or don't."

Summer grins at her comment, "That's the spirit. There's a yellow motorcycle in the garage. I'll be here when you get back."

Trini stares at the key in her hand, "That's assuming I _come_ back. You're a little weird."

Getting to her feet, Summer tilts her head, amused, "Between you and me, Trini, I feel like I might be the normal one here."

 

* * *

 

Luckily for Trini, nothing flares up in her head on her drive around Corinth.

She's never ridden a motorcycle before, but the moment she'd gotten onto Summer's and keyed the ignition, it had felt like coming home.

Riding through Corinth's streets bring a similar ache of home, but at the same time, not.

So, she rides, using the intuition in her gut to take her to where home resonates the most, but all she sees are people on the street, going about their day.

Corinth is still domed, but there's no command tower in the sky, Trini notices.

She turns into a neighborhood, small and quaint, and parks at a house that seems like a random choice but had just felt right.

There's no reason for her to be back here, but Summer's order had been so calm and gentle that it seemed like a polite suggestion, and Trini couldn't say no to at _least_ humoring a polite suggestion.

She gets off of the bike and takes off her helmet, running a hand through her hair to fix it.

A "For Sale" sign glares at her from the front lawn. The mailbox lays on the ground, presumably knocked off by some rowdy kids since the rest of the property is untouched.

Well, the grass is quite dead. But untouched.

"Looking into real estate?" A voice behind Trini causes her to jump, and she clenches her fists at her sides as she turns.

A man stands by the curb, a foot from Summer's motorcycle. His crimson, plaid shirt layered over a long-sleeved white t-shirt and baggy jeans look awkwardly out of place to Trini. Reminds her vaguely of fashion from the early 2000s.

"You don't look like a realtor," she says, warily, squinting at him.

He chuckles and shakes his head, causing his blonde bangs to fall into his eyes. He fixes his hair and regards her with a curious look, "No, I'm not."

"What are you doing here?"

The man ignores her question and pulls his attention back to Summer's bike, "Nice ride, kid. Is it yours?"

"It's a friend's," she answers, not quite knowing why it felt natural to automatically refer to a woman she'd just met as her friend.

He nods and muses, "Yellow's a nice color."

Something stirs in her chest, but Trini pushes it down.

"What are you doing here?" she tries again.

The man looks at her and shoves his hands into his pockets. The action has her finally notice his left wrist. There's nothing there when she expects that something would be.

Not a watch, but a--

"You looked like you needed someone to talk to," he says with a shrug.

"Could you have worded that any creepier?"

"Would you like me to?"

Trini scowls and looks him over again.

A black cord goes from his neck and disappears underneath his plaid shirt.

He notices where her eyes are and fishes for the necklace, pulling it out, "Wanna see this?"

The pendant hanging off of his necklace is a black and red circle, a symbol she's seen before. Somewhere. Sometime.

Trini turns her back to him and looks hard at her family's old house. Maybe if she thinks about it enough, they'll come back.

The man's pendant still weighs heavily on her thoughts. She can hear him shuffling his feet against the concrete behind her, waiting for her to say something.

A feeling itches at the back of her mind. Nostalgic, fleeting.

A conversation.

_Do you remember who we are?_

_Yeah. My friends._

"Hunter," she calls out with familiarity that she can't trace the source of.

When Trini turns around, he's gone.

 

* * *

 

Summer is waiting for her as she pulls into the garage and parks the motorcycle next to the black muscle car she'd been rescued in earlier.

Hasn't even been a full day yet, and there's already so much.

"Were you waiting for me?" Trini asks, curiously, tossing the key at Summer who catches it without even looking.

"Maybe," she answers, "I mean, I wanted to make sure you gave me my bike back."

Trini crosses her arms, "Does that mean you're not keeping me here?"

Summer laughs, and Trini's heart flutters. "I never said you had to stay."

"But you _did_ rescue me, so I figured I should stay for at least a little bit," Trini counters, looking at the ceiling instead of at Summer.

At that, Summer's brow furrows, and suddenly, the entire atmosphere of the garage changes, "Yeah, about that rescue… I did some digging while you were gone, and there's some… questions I wanted to ask you."

"Shoot."

"What's your name?"

Trini scoffs, "I told you my name already."

"Your last name, then."

Trini straightens, "Yeah, that's easy, it's--"

She blinks, and Summer tilts her head, watching her curiously.

"It's, um…"

Trini closes her eyes and reaches into her mind, trying to dig but finds nothing but a void.

This time, she feels the dissonance before it's fully there, crashing down on her, numbing her brain into static. Trini crumbles to the floor, on her knees, screaming in agony. She registers nothing but the red tiles of the garage floor and, vaguely, Summer's hands on her shoulders, but Summer's voice is drowned out by the violent screeching in her head.

The pain becomes so unbearable that she doesn't remember blacking out and collapsing in Summer's arms.

Distantly, Summer's voice echoes in her ears, "No, no, no, come on, stay with me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from The Last of the Real Ones - Fall Out Boy


	2. i am a collapsing star with tunnel vision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shhhh i Didn't change the fic title shhh u saw nothing

Trini doesn't dream.

There's nothing to dream about.

One moment, she's passing out on the garage floor, and the next, she opens her eyes to a bedroom ceiling.

"Good, you're finally awake."

A man's voice startles her _again_ , and she scrambles out of bed, dropping into a defensive stance.

There's a man standing near the door, dressed in all black, his hands in his pockets.

"Who are you?" she demands, "What are you doing here?"

She briefly wonders if Summer will come barging through the door if she screams for help, but to be fair, Trini can also fend for herself.

"You're leaving your left side wide open," the man notes, pointing at her.

She corrects it instantly and scowls at him, "You didn't answer my questions."

He smiles, and it fits perfectly on him, "Because you're asking the wrong ones."

" _What_?"

The man doesn't elaborate, just waits patiently, and Trini narrows her eyes at him, finally dropping her guard with a sigh and letting her hands fall to her sides.

"Are you a threat to me?" she asks, probing.

He shakes his head.

"Are you _real_?"

At that, his eyes twinkle, and his grin is back, "Bingo."

Trini waits, feeling slightly frustrated.

He thinks about it for a moment then shrugs, tilting his head, "I'm as real as you are."

Rolling her eyes, Trini grumbles, "So, you're really here right now? Like, if I turn around, you won't just disappear?"

The man shrugs again, so Trini quickly squeezes her eyes shut and then opens them.

He's still there.

"What the hell is happening right now?" she sighs.

"Well," the man says, pressing his ear to the door, "It sounds like, right now, Summer's coming upstairs because she heard you talking to yourself."

"What?"

The door swings wide open, obscuring Trini's view of the man, and Summer blinks at her. "Wait, sorry, I should've knocked," she apologizes, hastily, stepping into the room, "I'm just so used to this being my room."

Summer closes the door behind her. The man is gone; Trini sighs -- of course he is.

"This is your room?" Trini glances around -- it's completely bare, just the bed shoved into the corner. The walls are a bland off-white color. She doesn't know where the thought comes from, but she would've expected Summer's room to be more… vibrant.

"Yeah, it was or is," Summer says, wringing her hands together, "Were you talking to yourself? I heard your voice from downstairs."

"Uh," Trini swallows, thinking about the two people she'd seen. The first guy had been out in public, so he could've been real… or not. But, definitely not the one who'd just disappeared when Summer came in. "Yeah," she answers, offhandedly, "I was just… voicing some thoughts aloud to myself."

Summer nods, "Oh, okay. I just, uh, I wanted to make sure you were doing okay. How are you feeling? You've been out for awhile."

"How long?"

She glances at a black watch on her right wrist, and Trini squints. It's not hers, she can tell, since the watch is a size too big for Summer's wrist and dangles loosely. "About sixteen hours," Summer responds, "I was worried for a little bit there."

"You just met me," Trini deadpans. She doesn't quite know how she feels about someone she just met being worried about her.

Summer shrugs, "True, but you're also… strange."

Trini raises an eyebrow, "Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"It can be, if you want."

 

* * *

 

Summer runs more tests on her, checking her vitals for what seems like the millionth time in two days.

While Summer works, Trini notices, there's an uneasiness to her in the way she doesn't seem entirely comfortable, something that wasn't present yesterday.

"What's bothering you?" Trini asks when there's a lull in activity after Summer draws her blood and runs it through the computer, waiting for whatever results that Trini's sure will tell them nothing beneficial.

"Nothing's bothering me," Summer murmurs. Still, her posture in the chair in front of the computer is tense, body coiled and guarded.

"I can tell you're lying."

Summer sighs, closes her eyes for a moment, and takes a deep breath before opening them, "Where'd you take my bike yesterday?"

"Just over to Goodneighbor," Trini answers, easily.

"Okay," Summer clasps her hands in her lap and swivels the chair to face Trini reclined in the examination chair, "What'd you expect to find there?"

"My parents, I guess? You told me to go see my mom, so I went to her house."

Summer picks up her tablet from the desk and taps on it a few times before showing the screen to Trini. On it is a picture of the house she had visited yesterday except without the For Sale sign. "Is this the house you went to?"

Trini stands and walks over to the desk, squinting at the picture, "Uh, yeah. How'd you know?"

Summer ignores her and sets her tablet down, "Why did you go there?"

Trini shrugs, "It's where my family lived."

Summer stares at her, so Trini tries again, "It felt right."

There's a beat then Summer sighs and gets up from the chair, gesturing for Trini to take her seat, "Here, there's something I have to show you." Trini obeys, plopping down in the chair, her stomach tingling from how warm the chair is. Beside her, Summer leans over, messing with the keyboard and mouse, looking for something.

A picture pops up. The same house as before, but this time, with three people standing in front of it -- Summer, a man that Trini vaguely recognizes as Ranger Operator Series Black, and a brunette she doesn't recognize -- their arms slung around each other's shoulders, bright grins on their faces.

"After the other Rangers and I defeated Venjix, I left Corinth with Dillon and his sister, Tenaya. We helped with reconstruction efforts outside of the dome, but eventually, we ended up coming back here to settle down," Summer says, looking more at the picture on the computer screen than at Trini, "We sold the house and moved back here, in the garage, when Grinders started popping up on the outskirts outside of the city."

Trini glances at the hole in the side of the lab; Summer follows her eyes and swallows. "That was the first mistake we made," she says, quietly.

"But…" Trini's brow furrows, "If that's _your_ house, then what about my family? Where are they?"

Summer bites on her lower lip, stalling, "While you were sleeping, I looked through the city's database, even the stuff before the war and, um, I couldn't find them."

"What do you _mean_ you couldn't find them?"

This time, when Summer doesn't answer her question directly, Trini isn't surprised. "I ran you through facial recognition, too, and I couldn't find you."

"Okay," Trini says, unfazed, "So, your system sucks."

Summer fidgets with the cell chip holder hanging off of her neck, "After you fell off the treadmill, you told me it was because you remembered something with your mom. And when you passed out, you were trying to remember your last name."

"The point?"

Summer frowns, "What were you thinking about the first time? You asked me if I heard something, but I didn't hear anything, which means only _you_ heard whatever it was."

"I was… I was thinking about when I bought this shirt," Trini says, touching the material, "At the mall with my mom when I was, like, a junior in high school."

"Okay, and what exactly happened during all those times? You were in pain, but whenever I scanned you, I couldn't find any problems."

Trini sighs, "I don't really know. I hear this sound. My brain feels like it's splitting in half."

"Because of the sound?"

"Yeah."

"And the sound comes whenever you try to remember something from your past?"

Trini shrugs, shaking her head at how stupid that sounds, "I mean, I guess so? That sounds ridiculous."

"Two of my best friends were half robot," Summer comments, a small, sad smile on her face, "Nothing's too ridiculous in my world."

 

* * *

 

It feels weird to go into Summer's room now that she knows it's Summer's, but Trini does so anyway since it's the only place she can be alone for a bit and Summer has already holed herself up in the lab, clicking away on her computer.

The moment she walks in, she sees a woman already laying on the bed.

"Jesus Christ," she hisses, shutting the door behind her, "What the hell is the deal with this?"

The woman sits up, straightening out her yellow shirt. Trini finds something oddly comforting about her presence. "You looked like you needed someone to talk to," the woman says, echoing Hunter's words from earlier.

Trini voices that aloud, "Hunter said that to me yesterday."

"And?"

"And what if I don't _want_ to talk to you?" Trini asks, holding her chin up defiantly.

"That's totally fine," the woman says, tilting her head, "But there are questions that Summer can't answer, but _you_ can. You just have to ask the right questions."

The right questions.

Trini fumbles in her mind for the man's name; it comes easily to her, "Adam said that earlier, too."

"Maybe you should start listening to us," the woman smiles, warmly, amused.

She stares at the woman for a long time, trying to call a name into her mind.

When she does, something shifts in her mind like a lightbulb turning on or a lock clicking open. A fog that Trini hadn't even known was there clears up, and she's out the door in seconds, running downstairs and into the lab.

Her abrupt entrance startles Summer.

Trini grips the edge of the desk and makes sure Summer has her attention.

"You rescued me. From where?"

The right question.

Summer furrows her brow in confusion, "You don't remember? I figured you'd remember something so… big, but I wasn't gonna bring it up until, you know, until I knew a bit more about you."

Trini stares at her, and Summer sighs, motioning for her to join her, "Here, come around and I'll show you."

Summer clicks away at the computer as Trini stands next to her chair. A diagram appears on the screen -- a graph of gradually moving bars and flashing numbers, but Trini doesn't know what the bars or numbers represent.

"Venjix hit us from the inside by distracting us from the outside," Summer says, her voice far-off, distant, "This was how we figured out which of his army's attacks were ploys and which were the real dangers."

"Energy levels," Trini murmurs, catching on.

"Yeah." Summer types something in and pulls up another diagram, this one with bars that extend way beyond the previous graph's. The flashing numbers are significantly higher than before, up to the thousands and beyond, which Trini assumes is a lot without knowing that the unit of measurement is. "This," Summer says, pointing at the screen, "is an alert that came up yesterday before I rescued you. Numbers are off the chart. It's more energy than I've ever seen before, even from Venjix at full power."

Summer continues, "I traced the energy flux to an old Venjix base that the other Rangers and I had destroyed in the first war, so I drove out there thinking that, if Venjix was trying to rebuild his base so he could attack Corinth again, maybe I could show him that he didn't take the fighting spirit out of everyone."

Trini raises her eyebrows, "Do you even have your powers still?"

Summer scowls, looking unamused, "I don't need powers to fight."

"Well, you would've died, then," Trini states.

Summer doesn't answer and closes the diagram displays, focusing all of her attention on Trini. "When I got to the base, it was still in ruins. The energy levels I had detected earlier had died down for the most part by the time I got there, but I looked around, just to make sure I wasn't gonna miss anything important."

"And?"

"And… I found you, half-buried under a pile of rubble."

"I don't- I don't remember that," Trini shakes her head, "I don't remember how I got there."

Summer purses her lips, "You don't remember anything from your past, either."

"What do you… what do you think that means?"

"Well," Summer takes a deep breath, "Dillon and Tenaya had a similar problem to you, but they had been programmed by Venjix. You, on the other hand, have no cybernetic implants inside of you, but I still think the same answer applies."

"Which would be?" Trini asks, warily, unsure if she wants to hear it.

"I think you don't remember anything from your past… because you don't have a past."

 

* * *

 

When Trini walks out into the garage, Dillon is there, leaning on what used to be his car, his arms crossed.

"I told Summer to never drive my car," he mutters when he sees Trini approaching.

"You're dead," she states, flatly.

Dillon considers that for a moment then shrugs, "It's _my_ car."

"I wouldn't have fit on the back of her motorcycle."

Dillon chuckles, "You would've fit. I mean, you're definitely small enough. It just would've been a pretty bumpy ride."

He tilts his head and muses, "I wonder why you're so small."

Trini frowns, offended, "What do you mean? I stopped growing at a certain point of my life. That's how biology works."

"Ask me a question," he shakes his head, changing the subject.

Ah, this game again.

"Who are you?" she tries, "Dillon's dead."

"Nope, wrong," he smiles, but it's a wry one, "I'm still Dillon. In a way."

She blinks. " _What_ are you?"

His eyes light up, and he claps his hands together, "Bravo, that's it."

Trini wonders if Summer could hear that clap but figures the answer is a hard no.

"I'm the Bio-field," Dillon says.

The information is in her head in a flash. "Everyone's a part of the Bio-field," Trini counters with a roll of her eyes, not quite sure where she learned that.

"No, I mean I _am_ the Bio-field. I'm a manifestation of it."

"That doesn't make any sense," Trini mutters, narrowing her eyes at him, "You're not real."

Dillon shakes his head, "I'm very real. I'm as real as you are, in fact, _and_ I'm real to you."

"Cut the cryptic vague bullshit," she snaps.

The door to the lab slides open across the room with a hiss, and Summer steps out, causing Trini to turn around. "I know you don't wanna talk right now, but is everything okay?" Summer asks, "I heard your voice."

Trini turns back to Dillon's car. Dillon is still standing in front of her, his eyebrows raised. He raises a finger to his lips in a shushing motion. "You're just talking to yourself," he says with a small smile then disappears without a trace of ever being there in the first place.

"Uh, yeah," Trini answers, slowly, turning back around to look at Summer, "I was just… talking to myself."


	3. there's been a million before me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a significantly shorter chapter but i liked the cutoff so i moved the rest of what was meant to be the end to a fourth chapter

It's very hard for Trini to lay in her bed -- well, Summer's bed -- and try not to think about her past.

Every time she does, the dissonant feeling starts to creep up, so she shuts it down and shifts her thoughts to something else.

Thinking about Summer, apparently, makes her appear.

The door cracks open after a short knock, and Summer pokes her head through. "Hey," she greets, softly, "I wanted to see how you were feeling."

"Fine," Trini mutters, "I guess." Summer likes to check up on her a lot. She sits up. "What about you? It's been, like, only two or so days, and suddenly you've got me to deal with."

She's a mystery, even to herself, but Summer doesn't seem to mind the challenge.

Summer shrugs and offers a small smile, "I don't mind the company." She continues, opening the door a little wider, "In fact, I was just about to go check something out, and I'd like you to come with me. If you want, of course. You can totally stay here."

"Where?" Trini asks, curious.

"The Venjix base where I found you."

 

* * *

 

They take off into the night on Summer's motorcycle because it's less conspicuous than Dillon's car, even if it is yellow.

Trini sits behind Summer, her hands starting awkwardly holding onto Summer's hips when they leave the garage but, by the time they're far away from Corinth, her arms are wrapped around Summer's waist and she presses her body against Summer's backside.

Underneath her touch, she feels Summer relax.

There's nothing but landscape for miles, mostly dirt but every now and then, Trini catches glimpses of dead patches of grass. When the Venjix base gets within seeing distance, Summer pulls to a stop, killing the engine.

She pulls off her helmet and looks at Trini, "We're continuing on foot from here. Don't wanna attract any unwanted attention in case anyone's around."

Makes sense.

Trini takes off her helmet and leaves it hanging off of the bike's handlebars, following Summer up a hill that overlooks the ruins of the base.

"Why have things been so quiet?" she asks as Summer uses a pair of binoculars to scope out the ruins, "I mean, Venjix attacked again, so why isn't Corinth a pile of scrap?"

Summer tucks the binoculars back into her jacket pocket and sighs, "Because I'm no threat to Venjix alone, and he knows it hurts me more to be able to just sit here and do nothing."

Trini crosses her arms and scoffs, "If I were Venjix, I'd wipe Corinth off of the map."

Summer shakes her head, "I guess that's why you're no villain, then. Corinth's already dead. Everyone knows I survived when the other Rangers didn't, and they _also_ know that I can't protect them anymore."

"That's stupid," Trini says, "Maybe they don't deserve your protection."

"The question isn't about what people deserve," Summer counters. She keeps walking, coming to the edge of the hill, and peers down the slope leading to the ruins. "Hope you don't mind getting a little dirty," she teases with a wink before disappearing.

Trini frowns, shaking off the warm feeling in her stomach. "I'm gonna pretend like that just didn't happen," she mutters, dropping down and sliding after Summer.

 

* * *

 

The base has definitely seen better days, and in the night, it's a bit harder for Trini and Summer to navigate the ruins without tripping at least once.

Trini, unfamiliar with the ruins, trips a lot more than once and hates herself for it every time, but Summer steadying her every time makes it worth the embarrassment.

"Well," Summer says, stopping her at in a room littered with debris that looks pretty much like every other room in the base, "This is where I found you."

Trini steps forward and feels a crackling under her skin.

"Do you have something to check the energy levels?" Trini asks.

Summer nods and pulls some sort of small device out of one of her other pockets -- it reminds Trini of a price scanner but probably doesn't have the same function. Holding the device in the air, Summer examines the screen as it beeps softly. "A little high but nothing like when that alert came on back at the lab," she notes.

Trini takes a couple of steps further, and the crackling under her skin intensifies. She shivers, goosebumps forming on her arms, even under the jacket Summer had loaned her.

"I can feel something," she says, even as Summer's device beeps a little faster, a little louder.

She closes her eyes and keeps walking, using the electricity in the air as a guide. There's a buzzing in her ears, faint and distant, but not violent, not like the invasions she'd had earlier.

Summer's device becomes frantic, beeping angrily.

Behind her, Summer calls out, her voice tinged with worry, "Trini…"

There's a white flash behind her eyelids.

Centuries of history flood into her mind, an entire dam breaking, and Trini drops to her knees, her eyes flying open. She breathes heavily, trying to make sense of the images, flickering through her head like snapshots.

Summer rushes to her side, placing a gentle hand on her back. Her discarded scanner is going wild, filling the air with frenzied beeping.

Trini sees things every time she blinks.

_Five teenagers and a Command Center._

_Evil green energy._

_A spaceship flying through time._

_Hunter and his friends losing their powers._

_Corinth on fire, under attack, over and over again._

_The Rangers' last stand as Venjix corrupted all of their systems from the inside._

Trini evens out her breathing with some difficulty, focusing on Summer's hand on her back.

"What happened?" Summer asks when Trini's caught her breath.

"I… I know what I am."

 

* * *

 

The ride back to Corinth is silent, mostly for the fact that the engine of Summer's motorcycle is too loud to get a conversation in, but also because Trini doesn't want to talk.

Nevertheless, she wraps her arms around Summer's waist and holds on tightly.

When they get back to the garage, even as Summer takes off her helmet and heads toward the lab as she always does, Trini lingers behind, tracing her fingers over the handlebars of the motorcycle.

When Summer realizes Trini isn't following her, she turns around, eyes searching.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Summer asks, taking a step closer.

"What's there to talk about?" Trini mutters, shaking her head.

She can't believe she didn't see the clues before.

Summer stops in front of her, leaving her some personal space. "You said back there that you knew what you were," she says, softly, "I know you're not a robot, so… what are you?"

Trini thinks of Adam telling her that she was asking the wrong questions.

"Do you know how the Bio-field works?" Trini asks, instead, and Summer shrugs.

"Yeah. Everyone's connected to it in some way. Like a cosmic web, sorta. My powers were tapped into it -- all of ours were."

Trini nods, "Yeah, well, it works the same way a web does. There's focal points where parts of the web branch off. Like structural centers."

Realization dawns on Summer's face, "Venjix's base was built on a focal point. He… he always wanted to tap into the Bio-field, but he was only able to do it when he had a technological entryway like our morphers." She blinks, "How do you know this?"

Trini thinks of Dillon shushing her, their little secret, telling her to say she was just talking to herself.

"I was made from the Bio-field," she answers.


	4. you're the last of a dying breed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the Shortest Chapter™ lmao

"I don't- I don't get it," Summer scrunches her nose in confusion, "How are you…  _ made _ from the Bio-field?"

Trini thinks over it for a moment. Connecting with the Bio-field had given her a little bit more knowledge than she'd asked for. "It's a little complicated," she concludes.

"Then help me understand," Summer says.

"Um… I know things. Before we went to the base, I'd get snippets of information -- things I wouldn't have known otherwise like that that thing hanging off of your neck is a cell chip holder or how the Bio-field works."

"I think," Trini continues. holding Summer's gaze, "That it felt right to go to your house because I  _ did _ think it was my family's house. Just not… that kind of family."

Summer opens her mouth, but no words come out.

Over her shoulder, Dillon materializes from thin air, and Trini's eyes widen.

The action makes Summer turn to see what Trini's looking at, and when she does, a gasp falls from her mouth and she stumbles backwards, her knees almost giving out. Trini only just manages to steady her in time to avoid them both crashing to the ground.

"D-Dillon…? What… h-how?"

"Hey, sunshine," Dillon says, and Summer squeaks then lets out a sob.

"What is this?" she demands, trembling, pulling away from Trini and slowly stepping towards Dillon.

"I'm here to help you believe," he says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Summer reaches up to touch his face, and he shies away, taking a step back. "That's not a good idea," Dillon warns, sternly.

Looking like she's been slapped, Summer dejectedly drops her hand.

"Are you real?" she asks, quietly.

Dillon answers, nodding to Trini, "I'm as real as she is."

"That's hardly helpful," Trini mutters, scowling.

"I don't… I don't understand," Summer says, glancing back and forth between Trini and Dillon, "How… what is all of this?"

"I'm a part of the Bio-field," Dillon explains, patiently, pointing at himself then at Trini, "She is, too, but she's got a body."

"The energy spike you saw," Trini catches onto Dillon's train of thought, "That was me, I think, right?"

Dillon nods his confirmation.

Trini squints at him, "I'm not gonna start performing any miracles, am I?"

He chuckles, a hearty sound that has Summer stiffening and looking very pointedly at her shoes, "No, not really, not until you kick Venjix's ass."

Beside him, Summer scoffs and holds his gaze, frowning, her words sharp, "How are you sure that's even  _ possible _ anymore? You and everyone else got deleted, and Venjix left me so that I could be made an  _ example _ of."

Dillon's brow furrows, and he tilts his head, saying softly, "Anything's possible with The Power, Summer."

She shakes her head, tears starting to fall down her cheeks, and Trini feels the overwhelming urge to rush to her side and comfort her. However, this is a moment she shouldn't interfere with.

Summer puts her hand on Dillon's cheek, too fast for him to pull away, her breath hitching at the the realization that, for right now, she  _ can _ feel him. "I can't do this alone," she pleads, her voice wavering.

Trini's heart sinks.

Dillon places his hand over Summer's, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb, smiling sadly at her, then looks up at Trini, "You're not alone."

He vanishes, and Summer is left grasping at empty air, a choked sob coming from her throat. 

Hesitantly, Trini approaches Summer, keeping her hands by her sides unless or until Summer indicated that she was okay with being touched. "I'm sorry," she offers, uselessly.

Summer sighs, heavily, and looks at Trini, wiping tears from her eyes. "Do you know why you're here? Like, why… the Bio-field made you?"

Trini answers without missing a beat, "Yeah, I do."

Summer raises her eyebrows, waiting.

"You looked like you needed someone to talk to," Trini says, simply.

A look of confusion flickers over Summer's face, but she chuckles, anyway, "Well, then, thanks, I guess. I'm glad for the company."

"There's got to be more than just you as the last line of defense," Trini continues, inching closer, "I'm here to change that."

"I'm hardly the last line of defense," Summer mutters, wryly.

" _ We _ could be." Trini offers her hand forward, "I know this is weird, and trust me, I find it strange, too, but a wise woman once told me that nothing was too ridiculous in her world."

Summer laughs, shaking her head amusedly, and intertwines their fingers together, staring thoughtfully at their linked hands, "Where do we start?"

Trini's heart skips a beat, and she takes a deep breath before speaking.

"Well, first, we're gonna need a team."

**Author's Note:**

> title from The Last of the Real Ones - Fall Out Boy


End file.
